Marketing Plan for Lipton Tea in Australia

This report illustrates the marketing plan for Lipton tea within Australia covering the aspects like SWOT and PESTLE analysis, objectives of the marketing plan, target segment, consumer behaviour in the market and the marketing strategy.

MARKETING PRINCIPLES

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Background of the company & product.....................................................................................1
Situation Analysis......................................................................................................................1
SWOT analysis.......................................................................................................................1
PESTLE analysis........................................................................................................................2
Objectives...................................................................................................................................3
Target market.............................................................................................................................3
Consumer behaviour of target market........................................................................................4
Marketing strategy.....................................................................................................................4
Implementation..........................................................................................................................5
Evaluation..................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
Marketing has become very much essential in the modern day business and it has become
critical for the management to make sure that they have a marketing plan that is better than
their competitors. It is critical to choose marketing strategies appropriately and it should be
on the basis of the environmental analysis (Poret, 2010). Objectives need to be designed and
appropriate target segment needs to be selected. In this the role of marketing mix is highly
critical. This report is going to illustrate the marketing plan for Lipton tea within Australia
covering the aspects like SWOT and PESTLE analysis, objectives of the marketing plan,
target segment, consumer behaviour in the market and the marketing strategy.
Background of the company & product
Lipton is a British brand of tea which is owned by the company Unilever. In order to focus on
tea as a product, Lipton was a supermarket chain in UK was sold to Argyll Foods. This
company’s ready-to-drink beverages are sold by Pepsi Lipton International. Now this
company is jointly owned by PepsiCo and Unilever.
Sir Thomas Lipton in the year 1890 purchased his own tea garden in Ceylon now Sri Lanka
where he packaged and sold his first Lipton tea. This tea gained immediate success in the US
market. Unilever purchased Lipton in separate transactions which started from their purchase
of US and Canadian Lipton business in the year 1938 and the process finished in 1972 when
Unilever bought the remaining global business from Allied suppliers. Lipton teas are a blend
of different plantations across the globe from the firms like India, China, Sri-Lanka and
Kenya. Lipton Yellow Label is a mixture of around 20 different types of teas.
Lipton continues to be market leaders in US with a market share of 26.5%. In UK it is having
a market share of 10% while in India the market share is around 15%. The unique selling
point of the product is that they have blended different types of teas from all across the globe
which gives them a unique taste to sell.
Situation Analysis
SWOT analysis
For understanding the internal environment of the company SWOT can be an excellent tool.

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Strengths
 It is having the support of bigger brands like Unilever which provides them with huge
financial and other kinds of resources which is necessary for growth in the Australian
market.
 Being a bigger brand name will help them in growing in the Australian market.
 Strong supply chain of this company has allowed them to avail products from all
across the globe and deliver it to different parts of the globe (Mitei, 2011).
Weaknesses
 Lower market share in the countries where there are larger numbers of people
consuming tea such as Japan, China and India.
 Not very satisfactory growth rate in different parts of the world.
Opportunities
 This company has scope in the Australian market as large amount of people from the
tea loving nations resides here.
 Tea is a good commodity using which this firm can penetrate deeper into the rural
markets of Australia (Henderson and Nellemann, 2011).
Threats
 Australia is having lower acceptance towards any new product hence in establishing
their product in the market could be a challenge for the company.
 They will also face threats of competition as larger amount of new firms has emerged
in the nation.
PESTLE analysis
The PESTLE analysis is used to find out external environment in Australia for Lipton.
 Political: Australia provides a good political environment for the Tea industry but at
the same time in the last few years there have been change in the governments too
fast. This can enhance the challenges for expansion in Australia.
 Economic: In the time when the world’s economy is under the crisis, Australia seems
to have an excellent economic environment which can provide economic support to

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Lipton’s business. Australia is also a developed economy hence purchasing power of
the people is on the higher side.
 Social: The consumer behaviour in Australia is changing hence customers are also
looking for the new kinds of tastes (Lee, et al. 2010). Australian society is a mixed
society hence such kinds of teas offered by Lipton can prove to be successful.
 Technological: Australia is a technologically advanced society and hence most of the
companies have shifted their operations to technological mediums. Use of advanced
technologies in their marketing will be helpful. Use of social media technologies
along with other technologies such as mobile technology can help the company to
reach personally to each customer in Australia.
 Legal: The legal environment in Australia has been made easier for the companies
that aim to do business in the country. Lipton tea needs to follow all the quality
related laws in Australia so as to avoid legal compliances within the country.
 Environment: Lipton tea will have responsibility to ensure that at any stage of the
product life-cycle they do not violate the environmental laws present in the country.
Australia has become highly strict over the environmental regulations hence they need
to manage their business accordingly.
Objectives
Every marketing plan needs to have specific objectives as these acts as a torch bearer for the
strategies that will be made by the company.
 Specific: This Company aims to enhance their market share in Australia by 10% by
the end of 2020.
 Measurable: Lipton tea aims to enhance the revenue by 20% till October 2020.
 Attainable: They aim to reach to transfer their total business on the technological
mediums.
 Realistic: They aim to expand their sales by 5% in the next financial year.
 Time bound: By the end of 2020, they are planning to improve their loyal customer
base by 10%.

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Target market
The target market segment of Lipton is as follows:
Types of Segmentation Segmentation Criteria Lipton tea target segment
Geographic Region Australia
Density Rural/Urban
Demographic Age 16-80
Gender Male and female
Life-cycle Stage Married and bachelors
Income Middle and Low
Occupation Workers, students and
employees
Behavioural Benefits sought Time efficient and cost
efficient people
Degree of loyalty Switchers and Hard core
loyal
User Status Regular and potential tea
drinkers
Personality Careless & Easygoing
Psychographic Lifestyle People from all sections of
the society including
Mainstreamer individuals as
well as Strugglers.
Social Class People from all classes in the
society.
The target market that is selected for this product is from different ranges in the society and
consists of people of all age group except children. People who love to sit in the coffee shops
or love to hang around are the major target segment of this country. However their major
focus will be the youngster which is in larger numbers within Australia (lonescu-Somers and
Seifert, 2014).

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Consumer behaviour of target market
The major target segment for this company is the young people. This is because these target
segments have innovative taste and are also ready for adopting any new types of products.
The consumer behaviour of these people suggests that they low involvement behaviour. This
is because the product is itself a low involvement product. These people also embrace
products that are having real value for their money as these are the people having higher
commitment towards the lifestyle they are leading (Waugh, 2013).
Marketing strategy
For the success of the organisation, it is critical for the firm to have the best marketing
strategy. Marketing mix strategies allows the company to differentiate themselves from the
others and hence gain competitive advantage over the rivals.
 Product: They provide wide range of products under their portfolio. The products
such as green tea, lemon tea, ice tea and yellow label have made quite a success in the
market. Their products are blended with tea from different parts of the world which
gives them specifically different taste. The maintain quality as the tea grains and leafs
are selected very wisely and with precision so that the overall product remains to be
appropriate (Adams, 2012). They need to add in it the products that stay for longer
period of time for which they will have to work on their packaging methodology.
 Price: Tea market is highly price sensitive and hence companies had to look at the
competitive pricing strategy so as to remain in the market. However in the Australian
market, this company can place the product with slightly higher pricing strategy when
compared with other markets. From their current competitive pricing strategy they
need to move towards the new low cost pricing strategy (Hilal and Mubarak, 2016).
 Place: This Company avails its resources from different countries of Asia and Africa.
This company can market their product with the help of strong distribution network of
Unilever and PepsiCo in Australia. They can use centralised supply chain in the
market where they can make any of the famous city as one of their major distribution
centre and from where they could distribute their products in all across Australia.
They also need to focus selling more products through online mediums especially
with the help of third party sellers like Amazon.
 Promotions: This Company utilises almost every kind of promotional tools to promote
their products. They need to focus on the areas like content marketing and contest

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based marketing (In which if the customer buys their product, they can win some
kinds of exciting prizes).
Implementation
The four P’s of the company can be implemented wisely checking the challenges that are
faced by the company. These new strategies can be carried out throughout the years.
However it is always good to bring new plans for the products in the start of the financial
year as the performance can be evaluated by the company easily in every quadrant. For
implementation of new strategies this company needs to focus more on the technology based
operations as it will allow the firm to have a better control over their business operations
(Karak and Bhagat, 2010).
Evaluation
Objectives can be evaluated on the basis of metrics such as:
 Return on Investment (lonescu-Somers and Seifert, 2014).
 Increase in sales.
 Decrease in the numbers of errors in the operations due to technology enhancement.
 Number of sales of loyalty cards.
Timely evaluation needs to be done that too at very small intervals of time. In this regards it
is critical that firm utilises technology for monitor performance of each and every unit on the
basis of which they can make changes in their strategies.
Conclusion
From the above based report, it can be concluded that Lipton tea can easily expand into
Australia as they have high quality products available with them. Their major objective is to
enhance the market share of the company by 10% at the end of the year 2020. The internal
and external environment of the Lipton tea is good and but they might face challenges due to
increasing global competition. Their major target segment is the people of young age who
want different taste. Their behaviour is the low involvement behaviour and these people love
innovative products. They need to work on their packaging strategy, reduce their pricing, use
third party sellers like Amazon to place their products in the market.

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References
Adams, J.E., 2012. Marketing Tea against a Turning Tide: Coffee and the Tea Council of
Australia 1963–1974. M/C Journal, 15(2).
Henderson, R.M. and Nellemann, F., 2011. Sustainable tea at Unilever. Harvard Business
School Case, (712-438).
Hilal, M.I.M. and Mubarak, K.M., 2016. International tea marketing and need for reviving Sri
Lankan tea industry. Journal of Management, 9(1).
Karak, T. and Bhagat, R.M., 2010. Trace elements in tea leaves, made tea and tea infusion: A
review. Food research international, 43(9), pp.2234-2252.
Lee, J., CHAMBERS IV, E., Chambers, D.H., Chun, S.S., Oupadissakoon, C. and Johnson,
D.E., 2010. Consumer acceptance for green tea by consumers in the United States, Korea and
Thailand. Journal of Sensory Studies, 25, pp.109-132.
lonescu-Somers, A. and Seifert, R.W., 2014, January. Leapfrogging to Mainstream; Unilever
Makes Lipton Tea Sustainable. In Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal(Vol. 15,
No. 1, pp. 68-75). Taylor & Francis.
lonescu-Somers, A. and Seifert, R.W., 2014, January. Leapfrogging to Mainstream; Unilever
Makes Lipton Tea Sustainable. In Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal(Vol. 15,
No. 1, pp. 68-75). Taylor & Francis.
Mitei, Z., 2011. Growing sustainable tea on Kenyan smallholder farms. International Journal
of Agricultural Sustainability, 9(1), pp.59-66.
Poret, S., 2010. Mainstreaming fair trade: A discussion through the Lipton Tea Case. Crifo,
P., J.-P.
Waugh, A., 2013. The Lipton Story: a centennial biography. Bloomsbury Publishing.